Justice. On May 30th, 1879, Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of the Colony of Hong Kong, wrote a letter for the information of the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, to the effect that he had sentenced, on the previous day, two poor women to imprisonment with hard labor, for detaining a boy 13 years old. The women sold the little boy to a druggist for $17.50. The relatives traced their lost boy, came from Canton and claimed him, but the druggist refused to give him up, producing a bill of sale, and the boy was not given up until they appeared in the police court. The Chief Justice adds: "I am satisfied from the evidence that the great criminal is this druggist, and that it is an opprobrium to the administration of justice to punish these poor women as I have done, and allow the druggist to escape. I therefore ask His Excellency to direct that proceedings be forthwith taken against the man, and that the case be conducted at the magistracy by the Crown Solicitor, so that he may be committed for trial before the Supreme Court." He then speaks of a case of a woman whom he sentenced on May 6th, 1879, to two years' imprisonment with hard labor for stealing a female child. He adds: "The woman was merely a middle woman, and received a small sum, but it came out in the evidence that Leung A-Luk had bought the child for $53, and was actually confining her in a room where the child was discovered. She was the great criminal. It is an opprobrium to justice to punish this poor woman, and to allow Leung A-Luk to go unpunished. I am aware that, according to precedents here and at home, it is within the province of the presiding judge to direct prosecutions such as these to be instituted, but I think it more convenient to ask His Excellency, as the head of the Executive (whose province it especially is to originate criminal proceedings) to direct prosecution. To let these chief offenders go unprosecuted, and to punish such miserable creatures, exposes the court to the contempt of the community, and tends to destroy all respect for the administration of justice in the Chinese community." Accordingly the Governor forwarded this request on the part of the Chief Justice to the Attorney General, saying: "It is clear from the evidence and from documents published by the Contagious Diseases Commission that practices of this kind have prevailed unchecked, or almost unchecked, for many years past in this Colony." The Governor then referred to a case in point that he had submitted to the former Attorney General, but he "did not seem disposed to enforce the rights of the father, on the ground that he had sold the child." The Governor concludes: "I did not agree with his view of the law." The last case was referred back to the Acting Police Magistrate to